A Wooden Response to Real Faith

Spirituality Column #188
June 15, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

A Wooden Response to Real Faith
By Bob Walters

In the small-city, American innocence of my youth in the 1960s, it seemed that everybody went to church.

To my recollection nobody talked much about Jesus Christ but “Where do you go to church?” was a socially acceptable, non-invasive inquiry. God was at church, everyone went to church, everyone understood God was God, and God was good.

Of course, we didn’t go to church in the summer. We rode our bikes, played ball, and went swimming. We went to church during the school year.

And in school I learned that in 1776 our nation declared its independence in no small part because people “are endowed by their Creator (capital C) with certain unalienable Rights.” It made historical sense to recite daily the Pledge of Allegiance, facing the American flag as “one nation under God” (no comma).

How surprised I was to learn years later that the Pledge was relatively new (1892, Francis Bellamy), and “under God” was really new (1954, President Dwight Eisenhower). “In God We Trust” on our paper money first appeared in 1957, having been adopted officially as our national motto in July 1956.

Given that era’s bristling Cold War with the Soviet Union, the motto was a “purpose pitch” promoting American values like God and freedom. Some dismissed it as mere propaganda against godless Communism, but so what? Communism was a horrible idea, horribly applied, with horrible effect. Communism chokes individual freedom, creativity, wealth … and God.

Anyway, even today ninety percent of Americans like the motto.

So why is it that so many of us are willing, happy, even thankful, to Trust in God, while so many also blanch at any public confession of the miraculous, freeing character of redemption through the saving power of Jesus Christ?

These thoughts cross my mind when a great American like John Wooden dies. In his death, our culture reduces John Wooden’s enormous, demonstrated, lifelong, prosperous, humble faith in Jesus Christ to sports, championships and coaching.

Mercy gracious sakes.

It’s hypocrisy that all this reporting is done with an understood wink of the mass media’s eye. Everyone knows Wooden was a devout believer in Christ, and that every corner of his life witnessed to his Christian faith.

Wooden’s is what an abundant, American life in Christ is supposed to look like.

If truly “In God We Trust,” why is “Christ” so hard for so many Americans to say?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that while Wooden wasn’t shy about his faith, the media only reports on earthly rewards.